1865.] Ancient Indian Weights. 57 



Under class A appears the single representation of the Sun : no other 

 planet or denizen of an Eastern sky is reflected in early Indian mint- 

 syrnbolisation. In examining the general bearing of these designs, 

 the first point to determine is, — does the sun here, as the opening and 

 deepest-sunk emblem, stand for an object of worship ? Savitri or Surya, 

 undoubtedly held a high position in the primitive Vedic theogony,* 

 and it is a coincidence singularly in accord with its typical isolation on 

 these pieces, that the Indo-Aryans, unlike their Persian brethren, 

 dissociated the Sun from all other planetary bodies. But with all this, 

 there is an under-current of evidence that the Scythians had already 

 introduced the leading idea of sun-worship into India, prior to any 

 Aryan immigration ; for even the Vedic devotion to the great lumin- 

 ary is mixed up with the obviously Scythic asivamedha, or sacrifice of 

 the horse. f Then, again, arises the question as to whether this Sun-type, 

 which appears the earliest among all the mint dies, and is so frequently 

 repeated in slightly modified outlines, does not refer to the more direct- 

 ly Indian traditionary family of the Surya Vans'as,J who eventually 

 are made to come into such poetic hostility with the Chandra Vans ''as, 

 or Lunar branch. Neither one race nor the other is recognised or 

 alluded to in the text of the Vedas ; but abundance of reasons 

 may be given for this abstinence, without implying a necessary non- 

 existence of children of the Sun before the date of the collection of 

 those ancient hymns. However, looking to the decidedly secular nature 

 of the large majority of the figures in subsequent use upon this class 

 of money, I am content for the present to adopt the popular rather 

 than the devotional solution ; or, if the latter alternative find favour, 

 it must be conceded that the Buddhists incorporated the symbolism of 

 the early worship of the Sun into their own system, which in itself 

 may fortuitously have carried them through many sacerdotal difficulties, 

 even as, if we are to credit resemblances, the Hindus successfully 

 appropriated the Buddhist adaptation of an older form in the out- 

 rageous idol of Jagannath, or secured as a Brahmanic institution the 

 ancient Temple of the Sun at Multan.§ Whatever may have been 



* Wilson, "Rig Veda Sanhita," vol. i., pp. xxvii. xxxii. ; vol. ii. p. vii. ; vol. 

 iii. p. x. 



t Wilson, " Rig Veda Sanhita," vol. ii. p. xiv. 

 X Prinsep'a " Essays," vol. ii. U. T., pp. 232, 236. 

 § Reinaud, " Memoire sur l'liulc" (Paris, 1819), p. 07. 



